CFP for Special Issue in Technical Communication and Social Justice Social Justice and Translation in Technical Communication

Editors:

Suban Nur Cooley, New Mexico State University

Laura Gonzales, University of Florida

Translation has long been an important component of technical communication research, though there are various different applications and orientations to this work. For example, Rebecca Walton, Maggie Zrala, and Jean Pierre Mugengana (2015), discuss the role of interpreters in transnational technical communication research, explaining that interpreters are critical to the intellectual labor of research projects. In their work on interpretation in healthcare, Laura Gonzales and Rachel Bloom-Pojar (2018) share insights about the rhetorical work that medical interpreters navigate as they interpret in high-stakes contexts. From a health and legal perspective, Tatiana Batova’s (2010) research on writing for participants in international clinical trials highlights how processes like informed consent vary widely across languages and cultures.

Furthermore, technical communication scholars also point to the fact that translation in itself is often not enough to make information accessible to multilingual communities, and that translation work can be successfully paired with participatory methodologies and community collaborations. For example, Godwin Agboka (2013) and Isidore Dorpenyo (2019) identify translation and localization as critical components of technical communication research in the Global South, pointing out that successful communication design in global contexts requires collaborative, participatory research with multilingual communities. Agboka (2012) proposes “participatory localization” as a decolonial approach to technical communication research, one that highlights how linguistic decisions made in collaboration with participants can inform the localization process. In her work on bias in listening technology, Halcyon Lawrence (2020) also illustrates that translation not only encompasses the transformation of words from one language to another, but also necessitates an awareness of racial biases embedded in emerging technologies. These scholars recognize how translation is not a neutral practice, but is instead a culturally-situated practices that requires attunement to race, privilege, and power.

As Bruce Maylath, Ricardo Muñoz Martín, and Marta Pacheco Pinto (2015) explain, “translators and other international professional communicators operate as mediators to facilitate understanding across global and local contexts through diverse communication channels” (p. 3). Furthermore, as Beau Pihlaja and Lucía Durá (2020) point out, translation is increasingly critical in global technical communication research projects, and could further inform graduate pedagogies for students working in transnational contexts.

Stemming from and expanding these conversations, this special issue seeks to highlight translation as part of social justice work in technical communication. We are particularly interested in articles focused on how translation can help technical communicators continue to “shift out of neutral” (Shelton, 2020) in our collaborations with communities in both local and global contexts. In other words, we solicit work that acknowledges translation is not ever a “neutral,” decontextualized practice, but is always embedded within power structures situated within and across communities. We are especially interested in work that highlights translation in community contexts, explaining how these collaborations support translation practices that “speak and interpret with the community, not just for the community, or about the community” (emphasis orig, Royster, 2000, p.275).

To that end, we seek manuscripts (articles, community profiles, and other creative genres to be proposed) that can help technical communicators work toward answering the following questions:

• How can translation theories, both from technical communication and other fields, inform how technical communicators work to redress oppression?
• What can multilingual communities’ translation practices teach technical communicators about the connections between language, power, and positionality?
• How can translation be incorporated into technical communication pedagogies that emphasize social justice?
• How can we think about translation in correlation with transnationalism as digital spheres transcend borders and we see a growing need for multilingualism as varied communities move and migrate?
• What role does translation play in the work being done by organizations fighting for social justice?
• What does a social justice approach to translation provide technical communication researchers, practitioners, and students?
• What does it mean to collaborate with multilingual communities in the design of global technical communication projects?

Of course, this is a limited list of questions, and we welcome work that spans outside of these parameters. Essentially, we want to read stories, research narratives, articles, program profiles, and more that represent the dynamic nature of the translation and the importance of recognizing race, community, power, and positionality in translation work within technical communication.

Please submit proposals of 350-500 words to Suban Nur Cooley (suban@nmsu.edu) and Laura Gonzales (gonzalesl@ufl.edu) by March 31,2022. Full articles will range from 6,000-10,000 words, including references.

Timeline

Proposals Due: March 31^st, 2022

Notifications Sent: April 15^th, 2022

Full Manuscripts Due: August 1, 2022

Special Issue Published: Winter 2022

All manuscripts will be peer reviewed by members of the TCSJ editorial board.

References

Agboka, G. Y. (2013). Participatory localization: A social justice approach to navigating unenfranchised/disenfranchised cultural sites. Technical Communication Quarterly, 22(1), 28-49.

Batova, Tatiana. (2010). Writing for the participants of international clinical trials: Law, ethics, and culture. Technical Communication, 57(3), 266–281.

Dorpenyo, I. K. (2019). User localization strategies in the face of technological breakdown: Biometric in Ghana’s elections. Springer Nature.

Gonzales, L., & Bloom-Pojar, R. (2018). A dialogue with medical interpreters about rhetoric, culture, and language. Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, 1(1), 193-212.

Lawrence, H. (2020). “Bias in Listening Technology.” ProWriterTU. Web. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBqpcR1Exbw

Maylath, B., Martín, R. M., & Pinto, M. P. (2015). Translation and International Professional Communication: Building Bridges and Strengthening Skills.” connexions: International Professional Communication Journal 3, no. 2: 3–9.

Pihlaja, B., & Durá, L. (2020). Navigating messy research methods and mentoring practices at a bilingual research site on the Mexico-US border. Technical Communication Quarterly, 29(4), 358-375.

Royster, J. J. (2000). Traces of a stream: Literacy and social change among African American women. University of Pittsburgh Pre.

Shelton, C. (2020). Shifting out of neutral: Centering difference, bias, and social justice in a business writing course. Technical Communication Quarterly, 29(1), 18-32.

Walton, R., Zraly, M., & Mugengana, J. P. (2015). Values and validity: Navigating messiness in a community-based research project in Rwanda. Technical Communication Quarterly, 24(1), 45-69.